Okay, so this is a recap of the jumbled thoughts I've had about morality.

This is a theory, a theory is an explanation for observations. I don't seek to prove anything, only to posit an explanation for things. This is purely in a scientific format, I'm not dealing with semantics or logical structure, or ethics, or philosophy.

MORALITY is dynamic. Just like the gene pool. It also collects like the gene pool, is selected for like the gene pool, and evolves. This is my main hypothesis. I will explain why I believe so below.

1. Subjective morality is questioned by skeptics because there seem to be moral constants between social groups. Christians treat Sunday as Sabbath. Jews treat Saturday as Sabbath. Both believe that theft is evil. Christians view Sunday as the Sabbath, Atheists do not. However, both believe tend to believe that theft is evil.

Murder, theft, rape, etc. are all examples of things that seem to be morally consistent among different social or cultural groups.

2. Objective morality is questioned by skeptics because moral objectivists can't seem to agree. Objectivity usually has some sort of scale by which we can objectively identify things as either good or evil. However, even among objectivists, there is heated debate on many moral scenarios.

There is one possibility that JOINS these two, providing an explanation that incorporates all the strengths and eliminates all the weaknesses of both positions:

Morality has both an objective and subjective component, and that is the AVERAGE MORALITY. The AVERAGE MORALITY is based on individual SUBJECTIVE MORAL JUDGEMENT.

The best way for the above to make sense, is if morality is dictated by the majority.

(Some may be tempted to call argumentum ad populum. Doing so is actually an equivocation fallacy, I suggest you review your fallacies before calling it and wasting my time)

WHAT DO YOU OBSERVE TO POSIT THAT MORALITY IS DICTATED BY THE MAJORITY?

People within a society are linked by media. It has been shown that we absorb things like preferences for mates, factors for attractiveness, etc. We also absorb cultural practices, what is or is not acceptable in public, etc. It is not a stretch from those known facts to say that we absorb moral judgments.

Observation: People have their own individual beliefs and opinions. They also understand that there is a "general consensus". Some people are considered crazy because of what they believe. Some people are considered perfectly normal.

Theory:

Each individual has an INDIVIDUAL MORAL GENOME. This is a pallete or a survey that indicates how a specific person feels about different things, a scale of 0-100 as to how good or evil an act or situation is. This is the SUBJECTIVE portion of morality.

However, each individual may think that something is right, but be aware that it is generally accepted as wrong. This generalization comes from exposure to society. We are aware of a COLLECTIVE MORAL GENOME.

Each human has specific chromosomes that perform certain duties. For example, the last one determines gender and secondary sexual characteristics such as facial fair, genitalia, etc. Though everyone has such a chromosome, they are expressed in different ways. The collective genome would be a statistic of 50% male and 50% female (hypothetically).

Similarly, the collective moral genome would be a theoretical "master survey" detailing all possible moral situations and the statistical layout of how people have answered that survey independently.

EXAMPLE:

The scale of how people feel about justin beiber has an average at about 50 with a standard deviation of 20, meaning 65% of that particular social group think that beiber is from okay (30) to terrible (70).

The people at the very tail ends, who want to have his babies (1), or people who are planning to assassinate him and his entire family line (100) would be seen by the vast majority as psychopathic.

Observation: Morality seems to change. What was once outrageous is no longer outrageous. Beliefs that would have garnered a trip to the looney bin may now be widespread.

Theory: Like evolution, The COLLECTIVE MORAL GENOME changes over time due to selection. Things like technology impact society. Society changes and thus, INDIVIDUAL MORAL GENOMES change. These INDIVIDUAL MORAL GENOMES are passed around, spread by some, rejected by others. Depending on what works best, certain INDIVIDUAL MORAL JUDGEMENTs become more popular and shift the overall AVERAGE OF MORAL JUDGEMENT.

Example: Women were once viewed as only useful domestically. After WWII and several constraints economically and politically, women are now as much a part of the workforce as men.

Observation: If morality is dynamic and dependent on the majority, we may be very vulnerable. Yet, we aren't. Morality seems stable.

Theory: MORAL OUTLIERS are psychopathic to the majority. People tend to absolutely refuse to listen to them. The most effective people at shifting the COLLECTIVE MORAL GENOME, are those who do so with an opinion that is already there, not people who have the most different or strange beliefs.

MORAL OUTLIERS do not shift the collective, the collective will destroy the outlier. The collective shifts based on small shifts of the individuals.

Example: To illustrate this concept, I will refer to blood pressure medications. If your blood pressure is high, and you take a blood pressure medication that is too high of a dose, the body will think you are dying. It reads the drop in blood pressure as a loss in blood or a fatal infection and pumps your blood pressure up VERY HIGH. This is called "paradoxical hypertension". However, if you take small doses and decrease your blood pressure gradually, the defense mechanism doesn't see this. Your blood pressure is lowered and a significant change is seen.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS:

The best moral codes are those that involve some variable. If a law says that the theft of a cow must be punished with a fine of $10 in the 1800s, it really shouldn't be taken into account today due to inflation. The law should read "The market value of a cow", which is a variable.

The moral law "Do unto others what you would have done unto you" is generally accepted as the most applicable and the most effective. Why? Because it takes into account this dynamic model of how morality works.

So far, this is my theory as to how morality operates. It is the best theory I have seen so far and I haven't yet had a fatal problem with it. Any comments?

: At 5/2/2010 2:43:54 PM, innomen wrote:
It isn't about finding a theory, philosophy or doctrine and thinking it's the answer, but a practical application of one's experiences that is the answer.

: At 10/28/2010 2:40:07 PM, jharry wrote: I have already been given the greatest Gift that anyone could ever hope for [Life], I would consider myself selfish if I expected anything more.

MORALITY is dynamic. Just like the gene pool. It also collects like the gene pool, is selected for like the gene pool, and evolves.

This is accurate as far as it goes with descriptive morality, or as I prefer to call it simply custom. It's irrelevant to normative purposes though, except perhaps propaganda strategy.

1. Subjective morality is questioned by skeptics because there seem to be moral constants between social groups. Christians treat Sunday as Sabbath. Jews treat Saturday as Sabbath. Both believe that theft is evil. Christians view Sunday as the Sabbath, Atheists do not. However, both believe tend to believe that theft is evil.

Then a communist walks in the room and laughs.

Murder, theft, rape, etc. are all examples of things that seem to be morally consistent among different social or cultural groups.

Groups aren't what it has to be consistent among, unless you're just disputing cultural relativism, it has to be 100 percent unanimous for this to qualify as a refutation. Not saying yay subjectivism or anything, just this ain't the way to attack it.

2. Objective morality is questioned by skeptics because moral objectivists can't seem to agree.Neither can biologists and creationists. who the **** cares?

Morality has both an objective and subjective component, and that is the AVERAGE MORALITY. The AVERAGE MORALITY is based on individual SUBJECTIVE MORAL JUDGEMENT.

K: So we take a mean.R: Why?K: Because it's like, math dude.Like numerology?

The best way for the above to make sense, is if morality is dictated by the majority.

(Some may be tempted to call argumentum ad populum. Doing so is actually an equivocation fallacy,

It would only be an equivocation fallacy if you did not assert ab nihilo that morality was dictated by the majority. Ad populum is a fair statement until you give a special backing for the majority in this case.

People within a society are linked by media. It has been shown that we absorb things like preferences for mates, factors for attractiveness, etc

?Especially on the use of a universal word like "we."

It is not a stretch from those known facts to say that we absorb moral judgments.

Customs. Descriptive morality.

....

What does my sperm think about the death penalty?And all that stuff is descriptive without a link to anything normative. To say "People are THIS crazy" does not make them not crazy.

We are aware of a COLLECTIVE MORAL GENOME.

I am not.

Theory: MORAL OUTLIERS are psychopathic to the majority. People tend to absolutely refuse to listen to them. The most effective people at shifting the COLLECTIVE MORAL GENOME, are those who do so with an opinion that is already there

The most effective shift is not a shift at all? That sounds like no effect.

The best moral codes are those that involve some variable.

This is good as far as it goes. ^_^.

The moral law "Do unto others what you would have done unto you" is generally accepted as the most applicable and the most effective.

Lol.

It came to be at its height. It was commanded to command. It was a capital before its first stone was laid. It was a monument to the spirit of man.

That's cool, but all you have done really is present a genetic analogy for moral relatavism. The basic premise of a social and personal morality is self evident and intuitive. The point about moral extremists is interesting. But this actually fails to bridge the gap between moral subjectivists and objectivists, it is just subjectivism.

I am voting for Innomen because of his intelligence, common sense, humility and the fact that Juggle appears to listen to him. Any other Presidential style would have a large sub-section of the site up in arms. If I was President I would destroy the site though elitism, others would let it run riot. Innomen represents a middle way that works, neither draconian nor anarchic and that is the only way things can work. Plus he does it all without ego trips.

In my opinion, particularly when it's applied to reality, morality is not subjective.

Morals grow and evolve just like anything else (science, biological development, etc.), because it grows with human development, naturally, in the same way that maturity develops over time during the cognitive development of each individual human. In other words, as we become more sophisticated creatures, we develop a more sophisticated and rational moral foundation.

This is why there was a time when everything currently considered amoral, including the examples Kelptin provided, like rape, murder, theft, etc., was once considered a natural and typical part of society. We were more primitive, less intelligent, and overall, less mature.

This leads to the point that morals and logic are ultimately the same thing. If you consider any scenario and then consider the best possible option to solve a problem presented by that scenario, it will inevitably be more moral than any other option than you can come up with that you would consider more illogical. The rationale behind amorality always traces to weakness.

Therefore, ethics spurs from logic, which are affirmed by science, and apply to morals. Unfortunately, morals are also one of the most effective means through which to control people, so they're often altered in some way by governing bodies in the interest of amoral and thus illogical and ultimately counterproductive pursuits.

This is purely in a scientific format, I'm not dealing with semantics or logical structure, or ethics

Lol I missed.

Sorry.

I'll leave your ethics-free discussion of the synonym of ethics alone from here on out.

Morality and Ethics aren't the same thing.

Show me a supposed distinction.

Ethics is the general science of what man should do, why, and the application of theory to reality; morality is only the particular theory of how one ought to act.

should and ought are certainly synonyms. A general-particular distinction-- (which I do not use with those words, morality is plenty general as it stands, as compared to a particular cost bene analysis when one can't overrule an action on principle) does not serve the purpose of freeing this thread from discussing ethics, since to speak of a particular is to speak of a particular case OF a general.

It came to be at its height. It was commanded to command. It was a capital before its first stone was laid. It was a monument to the spirit of man.

Logic in the theoretical sense is an expansion of logic in reality ergo if it's subjective in reality it must be subjective theoretically.

Morals grow and evolve just like anything else (science, biological development, etc.), because it grows with human development, naturally, in the same way that maturity develops over time during the cognitive development of each individual human. In other words, as we become more sophisticated creatures, we develop a more sophisticated and rational moral foundation.

Until a "moral evolution stage" in human maturity is discovered by cognitive psychologists the objective morality you claim to exist will not exist or be recognized. The moral evolution which you speak of is just secondary socialization, conforming to the human status quo.

This is why there was a time when everything currently considered amoral, including the examples Kelptin provided, like rape, murder, theft, etc., was once considered a natural and typical part of society. We were more primitive, less intelligent, and overall, less mature.

I don't understand how you equate morality to maturity. Unless you define maturity as conformism you analogy goes no where.

This leads to the point that morals and logic are ultimately the same thing. If you consider any scenario and then consider the best possible option to solve a problem presented by that scenario, it will inevitably be more moral than any other option than you can come up with that you would consider more illogical. The rationale behind amorality always traces to weakness.

Morals and logic are not the same thing, logic is a means of deduction, nothing more. Morals are a means of valuing or judging something. To speak in terms of your scenario the subject will add morals to his dilemma as a means of increasing success for his kind in a altruistic manor or as a means of inhibiting his competitors. It's called Gause's Law or the principle of competitive exclusion. It's a part of social anthropology which is devoted to understanding human nature.

Therefore, ethics spurs from logic, which are affirmed by science, and apply to morals. Unfortunately, morals are also one of the most effective means through which to control people, so they're often altered in some way by governing bodies in the interest of amoral and thus illogical and ultimately counterproductive pursuits.

At 10/24/2010 10:20:53 PM, Ragnar_Rahl wrote:Then a communist walks in the room and laughs.

"tend to".

Groups aren't what it has to be consistent among, unless you're just disputing cultural relativism, it has to be 100 percent unanimous for this to qualify as a refutation. Not saying yay subjectivism or anything, just this ain't the way to attack it.

Not aiming for a refutation. Case closed.

Ad populum is a fair statement until you give a special backing for the majority in this case.

Ad populum is inapplicable to the statement "The majority dictates morality".

The most effective shift is not a shift at all? That sounds like no effect.

Strawman.

At 10/24/2010 10:20:53 PM, Ragnar_Rahl wrote:Especially on the use of a universal word like "we."I am not.

Translation:

At 10/24/2010 10:20:53 PM, Ragnar_Rahl wrote:I'm going purposely say that I'm outside of common society and pretend like it's totally natural for me because I like to give off the illusion that I'm beyond humanity

in b4 irrelevant jargon and attempts to find contradiction with no bearing on the discussion :)

: At 5/2/2010 2:43:54 PM, innomen wrote:
It isn't about finding a theory, philosophy or doctrine and thinking it's the answer, but a practical application of one's experiences that is the answer.

: At 10/28/2010 2:40:07 PM, jharry wrote: I have already been given the greatest Gift that anyone could ever hope for [Life], I would consider myself selfish if I expected anything more.

At 10/25/2010 1:21:47 AM, Cerebral_Narcissist wrote:That's cool, but all you have done really is present a genetic analogy for moral relatavism. The basic premise of a social and personal morality is self evident and intuitive. The point about moral extremists is interesting. But this actually fails to bridge the gap between moral subjectivists and objectivists, it is just subjectivism.

I see what you're saying. I actually missed out on that link, and Ren actually addressed it later on. The seeming moral consistencies such as murder, rape, and theft, I believe, are based on biology.

Just as how there are collective moral genomes within each group, just as DNA collects in the form of species, there are also traits shared by wider spans. Several different religions may have different thoughts, but held within the group of "The Religious", they share similar traits.

Whatever group you be talking about, there are certain traits that are simply common for the widest social group of them all: All humanity. And here's the objective link: The crudest moral judgments are actions that help our evolutionary fitness. Murder, for example, takes genes out of the gene pool.

: At 5/2/2010 2:43:54 PM, innomen wrote:
It isn't about finding a theory, philosophy or doctrine and thinking it's the answer, but a practical application of one's experiences that is the answer.

: At 10/28/2010 2:40:07 PM, jharry wrote: I have already been given the greatest Gift that anyone could ever hope for [Life], I would consider myself selfish if I expected anything more.

In my opinion, particularly when it's applied to reality, morality is not subjective.

Logic in the theoretical sense is an expansion of logic in reality ergo if it's subjective in reality it must be subjective theoretically.

Technically, scientific theory is exclusively logic-based. In other words, there is no such thing as logic in the non-theoretical sense. Applied logic is actually truth and therefore, is no longer logical, as you do not arrive to it through a priori, but instead empirically, as you arrive to it a posteriori.

Anyway, that's a loose correlation that is more generalization than anything. The fact is that morals that are acknowledged at a certain period or in a certain place may be relative, but overall morals, the morals to which people inevitably arrive, especially as they grow and develop, are intrinsic, rendering them objective.

Until a "moral evolution stage" in human maturity is discovered by cognitive psychologists the objective morality you claim to exist will not exist or be recognized. The moral evolution which you speak of is just secondary socialization, conforming to the human status quo.

Well, given that it's rather obvious that humans have progressively developed more morals as they developed more cognitive sophistication, I kind of assumed that it went without saying that cognitive psychologists have already repeatedly pointed such a phenomenon out. Given that it's a perpetual development in tandem with constant human development, there's no "period" to isolate. On the other hand, ethics are a difficult term with which to grapple, because the governing parties of most societies consider ethics and morals counterproductive. If someone answers only to a higher power or higher set of rules, then they clearly do not answer to you. This is why we can accept the fact that the balance of power and the allocation of resources is based on exploitation. As a result, ethics and morals begin to seem subjective and auxiliary, particularly since success usually requires a lapse in morals or ethics in a predatory society.

This is why there was a time when everything currently considered amoral, including the examples Kelptin provided, like rape, murder, theft, etc., was once considered a natural and typical part of society. We were more primitive, less intelligent, and overall, less mature.

I don't understand how you equate morality to maturity. Unless you define maturity as conformism you analogy goes no where.

Ethics/morals are not conformism. There is a higher truth to morals and ethics, based on logic and even provable empirically. Selfishness is not ultimately for the greater good. In fact, it isn't even beneficial for the individual, ultimately. As humans, we need one another. That is an incontrovertible fact.

Morals and logic are not the same thing, logic is a means of deduction, nothing more. Morals are a means of valuing or judging something. To speak in terms of your scenario the subject will add morals to his dilemma as a means of increasing success for his kind in a altruistic manor or as a means of inhibiting his competitors. It's called Gause's Law or the principle of competitive exclusion. It's a part of social anthropology which is devoted to understanding human nature.

Two things. First, I was essentially saying that you can arrive to morals through logical deduction. Second, competition is not an essential part of society, nor is it essential in human nature. We can act cooperatively and in fact, most successfully so.

Therefore, ethics spurs from logic, which are affirmed by science, and apply to morals. Unfortunately, morals are also one of the most effective means through which to control people, so they're often altered in some way by governing bodies in the interest of amoral and thus illogical and ultimately counterproductive pursuits.

At 10/24/2010 10:03:57 PM, Kleptin wrote:Okay, so this is a recap of the jumbled thoughts I've had about morality.

This is a theory, a theory is an explanation for observations. I don't seek to prove anything, only to posit an explanation for things. This is purely in a scientific format, I'm not dealing with semantics or logical structure, or ethics, or philosophy.

MORALITY is dynamic. Just like the gene pool. It also collects like the gene pool, is selected for like the gene pool, and evolves. This is my main hypothesis. I will explain why I believe so below.

1. Subjective morality is questioned by skeptics because there seem to be moral constants between social groups. Christians treat Sunday as Sabbath. Jews treat Saturday as Sabbath. Both believe that theft is evil. Christians view Sunday as the Sabbath, Atheists do not. However, both believe tend to believe that theft is evil.

Murder, theft, rape, etc. are all examples of things that seem to be morally consistent among different social or cultural groups.

2. Objective morality is questioned by skeptics because moral objectivists can't seem to agree. Objectivity usually has some sort of scale by which we can objectively identify things as either good or evil. However, even among objectivists, there is heated debate on many moral scenarios.

There is one possibility that JOINS these two, providing an explanation that incorporates all the strengths and eliminates all the weaknesses of both positions:

Morality has both an objective and subjective component, and that is the AVERAGE MORALITY. The AVERAGE MORALITY is based on individual SUBJECTIVE MORAL JUDGEMENT.

The best way for the above to make sense, is if morality is dictated by the majority.

(Some may be tempted to call argumentum ad populum. Doing so is actually an equivocation fallacy, I suggest you review your fallacies before calling it and wasting my time)

WHAT DO YOU OBSERVE TO POSIT THAT MORALITY IS DICTATED BY THE MAJORITY?

People within a society are linked by media. It has been shown that we absorb things like preferences for mates, factors for attractiveness, etc. We also absorb cultural practices, what is or is not acceptable in public, etc. It is not a stretch from those known facts to say that we absorb moral judgments.

Observation: People have their own individual beliefs and opinions. They also understand that there is a "general consensus". Some people are considered crazy because of what they believe. Some people are considered perfectly normal.

Theory:

Each individual has an INDIVIDUAL MORAL GENOME. This is a pallete or a survey that indicates how a specific person feels about different things, a scale of 0-100 as to how good or evil an act or situation is. This is the SUBJECTIVE portion of morality.

However, each individual may think that something is right, but be aware that it is generally accepted as wrong. This generalization comes from exposure to society. We are aware of a COLLECTIVE MORAL GENOME.

Each human has specific chromosomes that perform certain duties. For example, the last one determines gender and secondary sexual characteristics such as facial fair, genitalia, etc. Though everyone has such a chromosome, they are expressed in different ways. The collective genome would be a statistic of 50% male and 50% female (hypothetically).

Similarly, the collective moral genome would be a theoretical "master survey" detailing all possible moral situations and the statistical layout of how people have answered that survey independently.

EXAMPLE:

The scale of how people feel about justin beiber has an average at about 50 with a standard deviation of 20, meaning 65% of that particular social group think that beiber is from okay (30) to terrible (70).

The people at the very tail ends, who want to have his babies (1), or people who are planning to assassinate him and his entire family line (100) would be seen by the vast majority as psychopathic.

Observation: Morality seems to change. What was once outrageous is no longer outrageous. Beliefs that would have garnered a trip to the looney bin may now be widespread.

Theory: Like evolution, The COLLECTIVE MORAL GENOME changes over time due to selection. Things like technology impact society. Society changes and thus, INDIVIDUAL MORAL GENOMES change. These INDIVIDUAL MORAL GENOMES are passed around, spread by some, rejected by others. Depending on what works best, certain INDIVIDUAL MORAL JUDGEMENTs become more popular and shift the overall AVERAGE OF MORAL JUDGEMENT.

Example: Women were once viewed as only useful domestically. After WWII and several constraints economically and politically, women are now as much a part of the workforce as men.

Observation: If morality is dynamic and dependent on the majority, we may be very vulnerable. Yet, we aren't. Morality seems stable.

Theory: MORAL OUTLIERS are psychopathic to the majority. People tend to absolutely refuse to listen to them. The most effective people at shifting the COLLECTIVE MORAL GENOME, are those who do so with an opinion that is already there, not people who have the most different or strange beliefs.

MORAL OUTLIERS do not shift the collective, the collective will destroy the outlier. The collective shifts based on small shifts of the individuals.

Example: To illustrate this concept, I will refer to blood pressure medications. If your blood pressure is high, and you take a blood pressure medication that is too high of a dose, the body will think you are dying. It reads the drop in blood pressure as a loss in blood or a fatal infection and pumps your blood pressure up VERY HIGH. This is called "paradoxical hypertension". However, if you take small doses and decrease your blood pressure gradually, the defense mechanism doesn't see this. Your blood pressure is lowered and a significant change is seen.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS:

The best moral codes are those that involve some variable. If a law says that the theft of a cow must be punished with a fine of $10 in the 1800s, it really shouldn't be taken into account today due to inflation. The law should read "The market value of a cow", which is a variable.

The moral law "Do unto others what you would have done unto you" is generally accepted as the most applicable and the most effective. Why? Because it takes into account this dynamic model of how morality works.

So far, this is my theory as to how morality operates. It is the best theory I have seen so far and I haven't yet had a fatal problem with it. Any comments?